April 2018

04/23/2018

People around the world enjoy craft beers. IP attorneys do too, so much so that my firm, Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti (HRFM), sponsored a recent Brewers Association Craft Brewers Conference. You can’t help but admire the enthusiasm and dedication of craft brewers. The industry has been growing at a rapid pace. For example, upstate New York alone is home to over 400 craft breweries. The experience at the Conference could not have been better, especially the conversations with and information from craft brewers. In fact, because the experience was so positive, it was thought to give back to the craft brewers and the Brewers Association in the form of the information in this blog post. This post seeks to inform craft brewers of various intellectual property protections they may be able to secure: patents; trademark/service marks; copyright; and trade secrets.

04/19/2018

I have come across several smaller gaming companies that say they have never explored Intellectual Property (IP) protection. Typically, I respond with some examples of things they could be protecting. The reactions run the gamut from panic to interest to a glassy-eyed stare. This article will address the various types of IP protection that may be available to a gaming company.

04/12/2018

Provisional patent applications (PPAs) were authorized in the United States in 1995. PPAs have a one year life span whereupon they will expire if they are not converted into a non-provisional patent application (a regular application). For a variety of reasons, PPAs are often used as an alternative to initially filing a regular application by such organizations and/or persons as individual inventors, start-up companies, small businesses and multinational corporations. However, there are many advantages (pros) and disadvantages (cons) that should be considered before making the decision to begin the patenting process with a PPA. This paper will provide an overview of some of those pros and cons, as well as the minimum filing requirements of a PPA.

Pros of Filing a PPA

A PPA can be used to secure an early filing date. Establishing a file date has always been important, but has become even more significant since the U.S. patent system was changed from a “first to invent” system to a “first to file” system when the America Invents Act (AIA) was enacted in 2011. This is because under the AIA, if multiple parties are filing for patent protection on the same invention, it is the party that first files (not the party that first invents) that can claim ownership to the invention.